Tuesday 24th to Wednesday 25th April 2018
Posted: 25/04/2018 21:34
Tuesday 24th. The day started with generally cloudy skies and a moderate WSW'ly wind, allowing winching to get underway around 1020 hrs from runway 24. However, the wind started to decrease and so, after the 4th winch launch, a change to ATing occurred, but this only accommodated a single launch as the cloud thickened and lowered, with rain arriving around 1330 hrs and continuing for the rest of the day. The early conditions did, however, allow for some soaring flights along the ridge, with Andy Parish and James Karran having 1:13 in the DG1000 while visitor Mark Benson had 1:10 in his Ventus.
Wednesday 25th. Tuesday's rain had cleared, leaving the site in an unstable and moderate SW'ly with gusts into the mid 20 kts. A few isolated showers occurred but never inferfered with flying and while a high level overcast generated by the Pennines restricted the sunshine, there was some cumulus development that seemed to cycle, while the ridge worked consistently and there was even a few glimmers of wave to enliven the soaring. The day produced 27 ATs off runway 24, this total including 12 private owner flights split evenly between YGC members and the visitors from Lasham. One of the latter, Chris Gibson had the longest flight of the day amassing 4:27 in his ASG 29, while there were another 3 flights of over 3 hours, visitor Mark Benson with 3:40 in his Ventus and YGC members Steve Thompson with 3:27 in his Discus and George Rowden with 3:13 in his LS8-18. Those aloft for between 2 and 3 hours included Ben Dawson in his Cirrus with 2:22, while syndicate partners Nigel Burke and Colin Troise had 2:09 and 2:11 respectively in their DG600. The list of those flying for between 1 and 2 hours included visitor Ian Haywood with 1:50 in his ASW19, 1:07 for John Taylor and Andrew Bedford in the DG1000, 1:02 for Bill Payton and Paul Bulmer in the same glider while Andy Parish shared an hour with both Ken Duxbery in the DG500 and Barry Ogleby in K21 KLW. Cloud base varied between 3 and 3,500' asl, the bits and pieces of tantalising wave allowing a number of pilots to climb a little above cloud base, with the maximum altitude recorded being around 4,300'.
This blog describes a snippet of life at the Yorkshire Gliding Club. Why not take a flight and try it yourself, or we can teach you to fly as a full club member.